Ideas are bulletproof: The Republic of the Sphere Megathread

[Cannonshop]

Say what now?

I think he's referring to Stone's Relocation Program, which is more of an example of a writer not paying attention to either human nature or history.  "mass voluntary movement" doesn't tend to go smoothly nor does it tend to be truly voluntary anywhere EXCEPT fiction.  The problem being that there's official canon insisting it WAS voluntary, rather than the obvious 'voluntoldy' that would have to actually happen to avoid major civil chaos, civil disagreement, followed by loss of civility and civil war.  The partition of India is a more accurate example of what REALLY happens.  (it very nearly broke India as a nation with civil war before the ink was fully dry on the british pull-out.)  The other historical example, would be Tito's relocation and ethnic mixing policies, which gave everyone the spectacle of the Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990s.

*Wars that featured Ethnic Cleansing and other atrocities at civilians by their neighbors...

You can interpret the statement as "more hating on the Republic", and be completely valid in doing so, since the whole situation is very "Fasanomiks" in tone-something so contrary to human nature and history that it can ONLY exist as an arbitrary assertion, but it's canon.

[Church14]

I think he's referring to Stone's Relocation Program, which is more of an example of a writer not paying attention to either human nature or history.  "mass voluntary movement" doesn't tend to go smoothly nor does it tend to be truly voluntary anywhere EXCEPT fiction.  The problem being that there's official canon insisting it WAS voluntary, rather than the obvious 'voluntoldy' that would have to actually happen to avoid major civil chaos, civil disagreement, followed by loss of civility and civil war.  The partition of India is a more accurate example of what REALLY happens.  (it very nearly broke India as a nation with civil war before the ink was fully dry on the british pull-out.)  The other historical example, would be Tito's relocation and ethnic mixing policies, which gave everyone the spectacle of the Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990s.

*Wars that featured Ethnic Cleansing and other atrocities at civilians by their neighbors...

You can interpret the statement as "more hating on the Republic", and be completely valid in doing so, since the whole situation is very "Fasanomiks" in tone-something so contrary to human nature and history that it can ONLY exist as an arbitrary assertion, but it's canon.

Oh. I was fairly sure that’s what was being referred to. I wanted to hear how that was in any way, shape, or form ethnic cleansing. It read like another person who is leaning on what they heard second or third hand from people who really hate the faction.

And is the relocation program silly and in defiance of in universe logistics? Sure. But it’s far from the only thing that is.

[Cannonshop]

Oh. I was fairly sure that’s what was being referred to. I wanted to hear how that was in any way, shape, or form ethnic cleansing. It read like another person who is leaning on what they heard second or third hand from people who really hate the faction.

And is the relocation program silly and in defiance of in universe logistics? Sure. But it’s far from the only thing that is.

Indeed, one of the major problem tropes in Battletech, is that the writers often forget the rules the universe claims to obey-like the speed of information when your HPG network's down, or how long it takes to move a message by jumpship chain, or how current that informatoin can actually be, or...

but we put up with it as fans.  Which is why I'm more or less neutral on the question raised, you know and I know that the canon assertion is bullshit, but it IS the Canon.

until another writer changes it.  There are a lot of things like that-the lackluster 'defense' in Hour of the Wolf, the outcome of said lackluster defense being "Look kids, New Mercenaries!!" instead of...y'know, those soldiers turning to evict the invaders from their home, where their families live.

after all, why would a soldier from an all volunteer army give two shits that while they were deployed fighting the Draconis Combine, a bunch of social-fascist psychopaths conquered their homeworld?  There's Moneh out there fighting for someone ELSE!!

no reason to want to defend (or avenge) mom and dad, or sissy and the kids or god help you, your wife and your own kids, just go merc! yeah!!  who needs family or friends or anyone you might've joined up to protect, right??

right.  Screw them, they can be slaves to the Clans.

which is what is actually happening in the canon.  People who don't act like people is a staple of the setting.

[Metallgewitter]

I think he's referring to Stone's Relocation Program, which is more of an example of a writer not paying attention to either human nature or history.  "mass voluntary movement" doesn't tend to go smoothly nor does it tend to be truly voluntary anywhere EXCEPT fiction.  The problem being that there's official canon insisting it WAS voluntary, rather than the obvious 'voluntoldy' that would have to actually happen to avoid major civil chaos, civil disagreement, followed by loss of civility and civil war.  The partition of India is a more accurate example of what REALLY happens.  (it very nearly broke India as a nation with civil war before the ink was fully dry on the british pull-out.)  The other historical example, would be Tito's relocation and ethnic mixing policies, which gave everyone the spectacle of the Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990s.

From the FM 3085 it was a mixture of both: yes there were a lot of volunteers but Stone also had to send in the military to enforce the quotas. Which in return caused a small form of "rebellion" within the senate and also on the planets. Stone insisted on the relocations stating they would bring benfits in the long run but also had to add a time limit to those relocations. The idea behind it isn't that bad but as you said it tends to ignore human nature. Perhaps a better example are the riots that broke the Starleague in Exile as said groups began to clash with their cultural rivals

[Retry]

The idea behind it isn't that bad but as you said it tends to ignore human nature.

Ok, but that sentence kind of self-contradicts itself.

[Stormlion1]

Well, those mysterious attackers haven't been referenced in a long time, so they're not relevant to the plot by now and can be ignored.

Until they show up out of the blue! Plus didn't they deploy unknown designs when they took direct actions?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I don't recall whether they did or didn't.

[Orwell84]

I don't recall whether they did or didn't.

They did. Unknown battlesuit designs featured in the one attack caught on holovid.

[Cannonshop]

Ok, but that sentence kind of self-contradicts itself.

The sentence is only self-contradictory if you count "results" instead of "Intentions".  The Policy was based on good intentions, but it ignored human nature and required Brutal results.

The old conflict between those who think "The ends Justify the Means" versus those who point out "The means you use, decides what Ends you have to Live with (or die from)".

Like certain socioeconomic theories and models that are only popular on college campuses or among activists of a particular type, the Intention is noble and good, the actions you have to take to implement them are...not so well and good to the point of undermining the noble outcome you were hoping to get (this is true of extremes on ALL points of the political map).

Having  to send in soldiers to enforce your "Voluntary" relocation policy means it's not voluntary at all, nor will it be evenly implemented (thus paving the way a few generations down the line for your next civil war or brutal economic collapse)  Those with influence will be spared the worst of it, those who have the unfortunate combination of having something to take (or lose) and not being influential or powerful enough to fight back (Whether in court, or with guns) successfully will suffer disproportionally.

None of which, is treated as relevant among the theorists pushing the policy if there's no strong opposition in the government, especially if said theorists outright believe that their noble ends justify nearly any means, and that 'by any means necessary' is a valid excuse.

As Comrade Stalin once famously said, "One innocent death is a tragedy, a million innocent deaths is a statistic."

[Stormlion1]

They did. Unknown battlesuit designs featured in the one attack caught on holovid.

Plus one of the recent sourcebooks even had a name for this group as coined by Victor S-D. I think he called them the Lions because he didn't have a better name. The interesting thing was the Lions were using a symbol of a serpent wrapped around a sword against a red disk.

[tassa_kay]

Oh. I was fairly sure that’s what was being referred to. I wanted to hear how that was in any way, shape, or form ethnic cleansing. It read like another person who is leaning on what they heard second or third hand from people who really hate the faction.

I'll bite.

The generally-agreed-upon definition of ethnic cleansing (bearing in mind that there is no agreed-upon legal definition) is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. The Resettlement Act of 3082 had "non-insignificant percentages" of the several hundred million people who were relocated by 3085 doing so only under military force. And we already knew well before FM3085 gave us these details that the Republic's intent was to break up the old ethnic/cultural lines in order to bring about an end to the factionalism that led to outbreaks of war. Sure, the Republic got more mileage out of using the carrot than they did the stick, but they did use the stick.

Sounds like ethnic cleansing to me.

[Church14]

I'll bite.

The generally-agreed-upon definition of ethnic cleansing (bearing in mind that there is no agreed-upon legal definition) is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. The Resettlement Act of 3082 had "non-insignificant percentages" of the several hundred million people who were relocated by 3085 doing so only under military force. And we already knew well before FM3085 gave us these details that the Republic's intent was to break up the old ethnic/cultural lines in order to bring about an end to the factionalism that led to outbreaks of war. Sure, the Republic got more mileage out of using the carrot than they did the stick, but they did use the stick.

Sounds like ethnic cleansing to me.

It wasn’t to achieve homogeneity.

It also was almost entirely voluntary. Which I admittedly have issue with any of it being involuntary.

It wasn’t to remove an ethnic group from an area.


The goals were literally the opposite of ethnic cleansing. He tried to - for lack of less charged word - integrate the cultures of the sphere near Terra.

[VanVelding]

Plus one of the recent sourcebooks even had a name for this group as coined by Victor S-D. I think he called them the Lions because he didn't have a better name. The interesting thing was the Lions were using a symbol of a serpent wrapped around a sword against a red disk.

The secret organization which destabilized the "known galaxy" and then faded into total obscurity without ever capitalizing on their events had insignia?

The generally-agreed-upon definition of ethnic cleansing (bearing in mind that there is no agreed-upon legal definition) is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. The Resettlement Act of 3082 had "non-insignificant percentages" of the several hundred million people who were relocated by 3085 doing so only under military force. And we already knew well before FM3085 gave us these details that the Republic's intent was to break up the old ethnic/cultural lines in order to bring about an end to the factionalism that led to outbreaks of war. Sure, the Republic got more mileage out of using the carrot than they did the stick, but they did use the stick.

Sounds like ethnic cleansing to me.

It was a de facto attempt to create a novel culture via a fusion of cultures. By that logic, wouldn't any attempt to create something new be genocide by dint of having to replace what was already there? If an area is supremacist and xenophobic, isn't the attempt to soften those views also genocide?

If you move Combine culture off of planet A to planet B and leave Combine culture on Planet A and you now have it on Planet B, is that genocide?

[tassa_kay]

It wasn’t to achieve homogeneity.

That's exactly what it was for.

It also was almost entirely voluntary.

"not-insignificant percentages" tells me otherwise. The fact that military force was involved also tells me otherwise.

I did acknowledge that more of it was voluntary than not, but the argument can also be made that just because people went voluntarily doesn't mean that their going wasn't any less mandatory.

It wasn’t to remove an ethnic group from an area.

It was specifically to do that.

The goals were literally the opposite of ethnic cleansing. He tried to - for lack of less charged word - integrate the cultures of the sphere near Terra.

He tried to homogenize them, specifically targeting social and cultural makeup on Republic worlds. And used military force on those who did not willingly relocate. This is literally the definition of ethnic cleansing.

Just look at the Clans in the Republic. They started coalescing and factionalizing because they were feeling increasingly disconnected from their cultural heritage after two generations under Stone's policies, and were often the victims of prejudice and discrimination. Yet more evidence that Stone's policies amounted to ethnic cleansing.

I'll grant that Stone's intentions were good, because I believe they were, but at the end of the day, he used the military on his own citizens to force them to relocate. Call a spade a spade.

[tassa_kay]

It was a de facto attempt to create a novel culture via a fusion of cultures. By that logic, wouldn't any attempt to create something new be genocide by dint of having to replace what was already there? If an area is supremacist and xenophobic, isn't the attempt to soften those views also genocide?

If you move Combine culture off of planet A to planet B and leave Combine culture on Planet A and you now have it on Planet B, is that genocide?

If said culture doesn't wish to move and you use your military to move them, yes, that would be considered genocide.

[Stormlion1]

The secret organization which destabilized the "known galaxy" and then faded into total obscurity without ever capitalizing on their events had insignia?

Yes. It is canon though I think it predates the War of Reaving books. A early idea I think had the Clans being behind the events with the symbol representing at least two Clans. The Star Adders and the Blood Spirits. Not sure on the meaning behind the sword. All theory that though.

[tassa_kay]

Yes. It is canon though I think it predates the War of Reaving books. A early idea I think had the Clans being behind the events with the symbol representing at least two Clans. The Star Adders and the Blood Spirits. Not sure on the meaning behind the sword. All theory that though.

Yep, the insignia first appeared in the "Blood Avatar" novel, where it was even theorized in the book that some name or another could've been an anagram for Zadok, a minor Blood Spirit Bloodname. It was also detailed in the Dark Age Era Digest, where I think the "Lions" term was first used.

The big theory around here pre-WoR were that the Star Adders (the snake coiled around the sword), Blood Spirits (blood drop mentioned in the novel) and Goliath Scorpions (the sun-disk) were all represented on the emblem. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of that fun little nugget.

[VanVelding]

I think I do remember the insignia and its place in a woefully common mystery box story (that is, an unsatisfying one). I was just joking about the illogic of the most covert operation in the history of the Inner Sphere being executed by people wearing insignia, an appliance designed to identify someone.

[Cannonshop]

The secret organization which destabilized the "known galaxy" and then faded into total obscurity without ever capitalizing on their events had insignia?
It was a de facto attempt to create a novel culture via a fusion of cultures. By that logic, wouldn't any attempt to create something new be genocide by dint of having to replace what was already there? If an area is supremacist and xenophobic, isn't the attempt to soften those views also genocide?

If you move Combine culture off of planet A to planet B and leave Combine culture on Planet A and you now have it on Planet B, is that genocide?

Homogeneity

Genocide

If we're going to sling those kind of words around, it's  good idea to have the same definition or the discussion goes straight into the toilet after only a few posts.

Voluntary

Coercion

Consent

Now, generally speaking, if you're using the military to enforce a policy on civilians, that's not going to fall under 'Voluntary' or 'Consent'.  That's going to fall under Coercion.  If they'll shoot you for saying 'no' then saying 'yes' is meaningless-because that 'yes' is coerced or obtained by coercive means, as in it ain't based on consent, it's based on not wanting to be beaten, imprisoned or executed.

The Relocation "Plan" that requires military force with the express purpose of degrading or erasing ethnic identity? Yah, kids, that one would fall under the dictionary and legal definition of attempted genocide, as well as the definition of Ethnic Cleansing.  We generally associate both terms with negative moral motivations, but guess what?

The justifications used historically for such policies have often used weasel words and ad copy to try and sell it as a moral good.

The old saw about good intentions being the road to hell, is rooted in this denial of a basic concept that the means you use, decide the ends you get.  It's much easier for armchair philosophers and political activists to insist that the ends justify the means.

Even when the means make those noble ends physically impossible.

HOW you do something DOES decide whether or not it works.  this goes as much with people and nations, as it does with automotive mechanics-you can use a band saw with a metal cutting blade to take the head off your motor, but it's going to damage the block and the head, so that's not going to let you reassemble it into a hot-rod without significant amounts of extra work and tooling that might not actually work to repair the damage you did taking the heads off, and 'thumb torque' isn't going to reliably work as well as a properly calibrated torque wrench.

History is FILLED with examples where forced relocations did not result in domestic peace between ethnic subgroups.  When people come together on their own, it's far more effective than when men with hard boots and guns show up to force them.  again, if you want an example of integration failure, look up what happened in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and what led up to that-Tito tried to erase ethnic identity by forcing people to integrate at gunpoint, and soon after he died, it fell apart because it was coerced, with the result of some of the nastiest fighting in recent memory, including such euphemisms as "Ethnic Cleansing" in that multisided civil war.

When we look at MWDA, we see exactly the same outcome-once Devlin Stone wasn't there to hold it together, his forced homogenization policy led to a multisided civil war as soon as a crisis popped up that could prevent the authorities from stopping it.

The intention was noble, the outcome predictable, the defect, was a belief that any means to achieve a noble end was acceptable and a denial that the means used, would cripple the intended outcome.

The chief problem with the Republic, was that they let the Idealists set not only the policy, but the execution, without listening to the Pragmatists.

This too, is neither unusual, nor unprecedented.  idealists OFTEN screw themselves by 'getting ruthless' when they needed to get sensible.

In the book "Anatomy of Revolution" the author noted that what happens all too often in failed revolutions, is that the radicals get in charge and force-feed red hot revolutionary ideals to a population who don't WANT it, with a rather predictable pushback.  The People wanted a small amount of change, some reform, not to have their lives and existence disrupted and their history and culture treated as invalid, thus, when the mechanism needed to exert strong central control was busted (gray monday/Clarion) the whole thing started to implode with body-counts, coups, and civil war.

[Church14]

That's exactly what it was for.

I’ll reread the original material again, but my understanding was the goal was to break the factionalism. You don’t need a homogeneous mix across prefecture X to achieve that. I don’t believe homogeneity was the goal. Still, when I have a chance I’ll reread it. 

It was specifically to do that.

No. Stone wasn’t trying to remove all Buddhists or all of Combine ancestry from - for example - Dieron. He was trying to get groups like Christians, Leaguers, etc. to move in. And unlike nearly every real world historical example I can find, the goals didn’t involve slaughtering the locals when convenient.


Ethnic cleaning would be what happens when Capellans retake [pick a capellan world] and start executing or kicking out anyone who’d moved there since 3085.

Was Stone’s Relocation well intentioned? Sure. Was it ethical? Debatably. Up until any forced movement of people. Was it ethnic cleansing? No.

[Cannonshop]

I’ll reread the original material again, but my understanding was the goal was to break the factionalism. You don’t need a homogeneous mix across prefecture X to achieve that. I don’t believe homogeneity was the goal. Still, when I have a chance I’ll reread it. 

No. Stone wasn’t trying to remove all Buddhists or all of Combine ancestry from - for example - Dieron. He was trying to get groups like Christians, Leaguers, etc. to move in. And unlike nearly every real world historical example I can find, the goals didn’t involve slaughtering the locals when convenient.


Ethnic cleaning would be what happens when Capellans retake [pick a capellan world] and start executing or kicking out anyone who’d moved there since 3085.

Was Stone’s Relocation well intentioned? Sure. Was it ethical? Debatably. Up until any forced movement of people. Was it ethnic cleansing? No.

Ethics? no, not debatable, when you use soldiers to force unwilling populations to change their habits in hopes of erasing their culture, that's not ethical-the objective might be, but the methodology isn't, and ethics isn't about intent, it's about execution...or in this case, about offering the choice of execution or compliance to force a cultural shift, because soldiers don't get compliance by waving fluffy bunnies unless those bunnies are lethal.

and you can call something voluntary, but if it's enforced by men with guns, it's not voluntary no matter HOW you spin it for the press. 

The only 'voluntary' thing about it being "I don't want to be killed by the government".

[Cannonshop]

part of the problem here, is framing.  There's a world of difference between erasing legal barriers and letting people move freely, say, by ending segregation and separate-but-equal policies so that ethnic minorities can move somewhere they can prosper.  This is good.

Sending armed troops to, say, rural montana and telling residents "you HAVE to move to Downtown Seattle or San Francisco or we'll shoot you" is not so good.

one of these, is ethical-it leaves the consent to the people being impacted, and one of these is NOT ethical, though both have the same desire to integrate populations and dilute harmful local memes to create a uniform national identity.

The first example, where it really IS voluntary, has positive outcomes, the second, is setting things up for ethnic strife and violence later on, when the government is distracted or overloaded with another crisis.

the argument REALLY rests on whether or not the Republic had to force people to 'voluntarily relocate'.  if force had to be used, then it wasn't voluntary.

if one of your decision informers is "The government will kill me if I don't..." then no matter how else you flavor it for the press or for academics later on, it's not voluntary at all.

[Church14]

Ethics? no, not debatable, when you use soldiers to force unwilling populations to change their habits in hopes of erasing their culture, that's not ethical-the objective might be, but the methodology isn't, and ethics isn't about intent, it's about execution...or in this case, about offering the choice of execution or compliance to force a cultural shift, because soldiers don't get compliance by waving fluffy bunnies unless those bunnies are lethal.

and you can call something voluntary, but if it's enforced by men with guns, it's not voluntary no matter HOW you spin it for the press. 

The only 'voluntary' thing about it being "I don't want to be killed by the government".

The initial resettlement was voluntary. That didn’t hit what Stone wanted, so then they offered incentives. When that didn’t hit the finish line, then Stone used force.

So by your example:
1) George Washington goes and asks a bunch of people to move from Maine to Vermont because he doesn’t like interstate fighting. Some move.
2) So then George offers cash and land for anyone who swaps. Suddenly a bunch more move. It’s still not quite as many as he wants.
3) He resorts to forced movement of groups. Shifts a few more percent of the population while not exterminating cultures, killing anyone, or ejecting anyone from the nation entirely.

Steps 1 and 2 are fine. Step 3 is the problem. That’s why I’ve said when he resorted to that, I take issue.


But all of this is missing my original point. The forced relocation doesn’t match the criteria as I can read it for ethnic cleansing.

[Cannonshop]

But all of this is missing my original point. The forced relocation doesn’t match the criteria as I can read it for ethnic cleansing.

and thus, the reason I posted the dictionary definition.

You used the wrong example.  Andrew Jackson, not George Washington.

Washington had to be Persuaded to accept the Presidency, and it was Andy Jackson who managed a forced mass relocation.

look it up.

Here's the thing (editing)...bleh

alright, so first, he asks, then tries to bribe.  Now this program failing would be a strong indicator that maybe there's something wrong in or with his plan, but noooo...

He sends in the military and forces it.

Now, what is 'it'?

it's his idealized 'mix' of ethnicities in a given area.

You know, Cleansing an area's population-adjusting the mix to an ideal.

By Force.

and for what purpose? to eliminate a threat to his regime that was not truly evident, using a method not guaranteed to work under the principle of "The Ends Justify The Means"-a principle that tends to backfire unless your objective really is destructive in nature.

Now, given the ethnic groups involved, and the ethnic groups comprising Stone's happy friends, there's a pretty good case that it wouldn't take a LOT of looking to find mass graves-the Cappies weren't dependent on Stone to liberate them and didn't feel that swell of gratitude-and nobody really likes them anyway.

and hey, the military is there with guns to force people to comply and if they don't? what do you think happens? hmmm?

It's a bit like calling the Cherokee relocation 'Voluntary' because they didn't want to be shot.

[Church14]

You add in a lot that isn’t written down. Make assumptions for worst interpretation. I can make a lot of groups look terrible that way.

And Jackson was trying to eliminate multiple races of people. Stone wasn’t. The people forced to move that died we’re a feature, not a bug. That example doesn’t hold.


It’s probably best to drop this line of conversation. You’ve reached your conclusions, I’ve reached mine. I’m not seeing anything progressing.

[Maingunnery]

2) So then George offers cash and land for anyone who swaps.

Who's cash and land was taken before George could offer it to someone else?

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

Oh. I was fairly sure that’s what was being referred to. I wanted to hear how that was in any way, shape, or form ethnic cleansing. It read like another person who is leaning on what they heard second or third hand from people who really hate the faction.

And is the relocation program silly and in defiance of in universe logistics? Sure. But it’s far from the only thing that is.

The purpose of the program was to erase existing cultural identities, which is ethnic cleansing. If you don't realize that you really don't understand the forms that ethnic cleansing takes. It's not all gas chambers.

[Cannonshop]

Who's cash and land was taken before George could offer it to someone else?

That IS a good question.  You gotta HAVE something, to offer it, and Stone didn't own any factories or business ventures (or real-estate, for that matter...)

quite a bit of Confiscated-from-the WoB, I'd speculate, and assets seized from Word of Blake Collaborators...but is it enough to finance/fund mass migrations?

Imagine you're a local from Shipka (Former Cappie world), which didn't get savagely pounded on by anyone and was still a pretty nice place to live.  What's your motivation to move to a bombed out hellpit courtesy of a decades long savage war on the Lyran border in the former Isle of Skye? how big is the bribe you'd have to be offered to upstakes, uproot, and move away from the place your family's lived since the mass exodus from old Earth-we're talking CENTURIES here.

How good does it have to be to make you sell out what's become ancestral lands and move somewhere else?

Hence, why Stone had to send in the jackboots with the guns to make you.

[Church14]

Who's cash and land was taken before George could offer it to someone else?

I was making up a hypothetical. I couldn’t find any real world examples that didn’t just swerve straight into comical levels of evil. 

[Church14]

The purpose of the program was to erase existing cultural identities, which is ethnic cleansing. If you don't realize that you really don't understand the forms that ethnic cleansing takes. It's not all gas chambers.

No. The purpose was to “eliminate historical animosity.” Not to create a new uniform pax Word culture. The point of Integrating communities isn’t to destroy both cultures. The point is that extended exposure to each other is meant to break down walls and get them to understand each other and stop hating.


This. This basic misunderstanding on your end of the point of the program is why there’s no point to this conversation. I don’t know how many different ways to say it.